Memories
by faolae
Summary: No one really knows what the tactician's life was like before they woke up in the middle of that field. This is an attempt to piece together the missing fragments of the tactician's past from what little information was gleaned from the game. (Warning for some wartime violence)
1. Part 1

When you were but a small babe, your mother had to watch you go through a very painful process of being branded by Grima. The Grimleal's ruthlessness didn't end with children; they cut your small hand and spilled your blood over the stone altar. It took all of your mama's will not to cut the dastards down while you screamed and cried through the pain. From then on, you were branded to be the lifeless puppet of some unholy god.

That night, after the horrid ceremony was over and you were fast asleep, Mama watched over you as she plotted. The moment your heart was declared fit for Grima, Mama wanted to escape the cult. (There were days when she said she wanted to escape even before you were born. She had a very dark and tired look to her face whenever she said that.) Over the next few days, Mama managed to sneak supplies―there was barely enough for the two of you―for a very long trip. Validar had just begun to notice the missing tonics and rations when your mother suddenly vanished with you.

The Grimleal's flaw was that they were too arrogant. They truly believed they were doing something good for Plegia's people when they slaughtered themselves. They truly believed that your mama wouldn't _dare_ go against Grima's (_their_) wishes. They made a grave mistake to forget that your mother was the descendant of Katarina, the brilliant traitor who schemed her way into history.

Her treachery was never a question of _if_, but _when?_

Mama only stopped for brief respites to replenish supplies and to feed you. She traveled across Plegia's arid deserts, keeping you safely bundled from the harsh winds and unforgiving sun. She made it to the Ylissean-Plegian border, where you spent your first few years growing up.

The borders weren't a peaceful place. War was imminent on both sides and there was a lot of tension among the people. Though you spent your days in a cabin of sorts that belonged to an aging couple. Mama had her nose stuck in books half the time, you in her arms for a quarter, and out of the house for the rest. You spent your time gurgling happily until you said your first word: "Boog!" for book. Mama laughed so hard that she cried and it was probably one of the few warm memories you had.

Ylisse declared war on Plegia, forcing the occupants in that little happy cabin to vacate. You and Mama were separated from the nice old couple in the chaos and neither of you saw them again. Mama took you across the Ylissean countryside. You read from your books that Ylisse was a prosperous halidom that emphasized peace. Except, you saw nothing but dead grass and lonely fields. It was all strangely devoid of life.

Not that Regna Ferox was any better. When the both of you arrived at the gate, you thought you'd turn into a block of ice. It was cold, colder than the border mountains. Even Mama had a hard time adjusting to the bitter freezing temperatures.

Mama made you a very nice coat that was light but warm in the inside. She caressed your face and called you her "little hierophant" as she helped you put your new robes on. You weren't sure what that meant at the time, but you beamed at her with all your might in the hopes of keeping her warm with your bright smile.

Eventually you two adjusted to the omnipresent cold. And it was in Regna Ferox where you truly grew. All kinds of people, even those from as far as Valm (you weren't sure where that was until somebody yourmom pointed it out on a map for you), flocked to Regna Ferox. You learned from the people around you, from your wise mother who outsmarted the local mages, and from whatever books you could get your hands on. You had a particular liking for strategy games and books on war tactics, much to your mother's chagrin.

But then it all changed when a bunch of strange hooded people appeared and started looking for you. You see one of them demanding something from a neighbor who lived across from you when Mother suddenly grabbed you and pulled you into the house.

"How the hells did they track us here?" Mother muttered under her breath as she shoved you into the cellar and followed after you. "Go, _move_."

You didn't argue. She led you through the darkness towards a hidden tunnel. You crawl through it, trying hard not to sneeze or panic in the cramped space. Once you were outside, Mother threw you a heavy pack, apparently prepared for this kind of situation. She hissed at you to hide from the hooded people, and you did.

Not for long, apparently.

They grabbed you mid-run and stuffed you into a sack before you even got the chance to scream.

You heard Mother screaming for you before her cries were suddenly cut off. There was a soft thud and the sickening cries of triumph. You cried silently as the hooded people took you out of your home of eleven years to somewhere far, far away.

They led you in some caravan that you could never step out of, unless they stopped in cities. You hugged your mother's coat close to you for comfort.

When you snuck a peek out the window flap, you saw strangely familiar trees. Then you realized you were in the Ylissean countryside, from long ago. Now the desolate landscape of dead grass and gray skies had transformed into a living scenery, with green grass and trees that were alive and healthy and blue skies.

It'd been days since you last set foot outside. You informed the hooded people this, but they ignored you. Seeing that they'd become complacent around you, all the dark anger boiling in your chest spilled over your tongue.

"I am the vessel of Grima, the Fell Dragon," you growled, remembering Mother's silent weeping whenever she told you that, "and you _dare_ _defy_ _me?_ Mark my words when I say that I do not forgive insolence. Stop the caravan _now_."

That got their attention. One of the mages in the room with you hurriedly went out to tell the driver. The convoy slowed to a stop. You kept up with your new transformation with a grin that barely restrained your dissatisfaction and eyes narrowed like a snake's. Good to know that they still had their loyalty to Grima.

"Do not follow me. I don't want to see your filthy human faces," you hissed as you slowly stood from your seat and stalked towards the door.

You were minutes away from freedom when you felt something sharp poke at your back.

"Nice acting," one of the dark mages sneered, "but I can tell that your mark hasn't activated."

You kept your panic in check as you scoffed. "You don't even know how to tell if the mark activated. Plus―"

You whirled around the sword, twisted the mage's arm around to his back, and forced his own blade to his neck with his own hand.

You leaned in to whisper in his ear, "―_I am far more dangerous than you know._"

Then you wrenched the sword out of the mage's hand and hit his head with its pommel. You rummaged through his things for any other weapons and found a Thunder tome. After stuffing the pilfered items into your robe, you stepped over the crumpled form and snuck out the caravan.

You ran. Not once did you look back.

The beautiful scenery flew past you as you pumped your legs and your heart hammered against your chest. The full force of the whole ordeal began eating away at your limbs, sapping you of your energy. You felt like your lungs would burst from overexertion if you didn't stop, but you dared not to.

You found yourself in the middle of a field as you winded down from your escape. Panting hard, you rested underneath the shade of a very bright green tree. It was unlike any other tree you'd seen in Ferox or in the border mountains. Mother told you that there were barely any trees in Plegia, and the ones that survived were of an ugly hardy species. Plegia was also home to the Grimleal, the very same ruthless people that you were born into and the same people who had done that to Mother. You felt very lonely and tired.

Your eyelids were heavy with leaden sleep.

You had a sudden urge to burn everything down.

Something cold seeped in your bones, but it wasn't like Ferox's familiar cold. This was a chill that struck you numb, took hold of your heart and soul, swallowed you whole. You couldn't move, couldn't speak. Trapped.

Something whispered to you, dark and primal. Your skin crawled when you heard a definite reptilian voice speak in some eldritch language you knew by heart, even if this was your first time hearing it.

_We shall be as one. You are __**mine**__._

A fire scorched your insides. You couldn't see, couldn't breathe. Your head felt like it was about to explode.

_Bend to my will, vessel. You are __**nothing**_ _in the face of darkness._

But you fought. You fought because you didn't want to become a puppet. You fought because Mother had always told you that your fate was _yours_ and _yours_ alone. You fought because you would never let anyone take that away from you, not even a _god_.

_Pathetic human._

You blacked out.

Behind your closed eyes, Grima and nightmares greeted you.

* * *

When you woke up, a pair of curious blue eyes were studying you. A blonde girl in pigtails giggled at you, while a familiar blue-haired man offered a gloved hand.

"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground you know."

You smiled.


	2. Part 2

Even when your loved ones were trying to hold on to the barely tangible parts of you and begged for you to stay, you smiled in your death.

At least, you thought you were dying until you woke up.

And you wake up as a blank slate.

"… Where…?"

Your head hurts. Did you run into something and knock yourself out? That'd be pretty embarrassing. You push yourself up on wobbly feet. Oh man, even your whole body kind of feels… new? You don't know how to describe it. At least it isn't unpleasant. You try walking around, but you find that your feet don't exactly make contact with the hold your fingers out in front of you and you're startled to find that you can see through them, as if they're made of glass.

You look up from your strange fingers and see a tall mirror covered in a cloth staring back at you.

Suddenly those curious feelings are gone and a sense of dread crawls up your spine and churns your stomach.

You are afraid.

_Of what?_

Of facing yourself. Of what you've done in your life so far. Of a lot of things, really.

_Well… have you seen yourself in the mirror lately? Go on._

_Take a look._

With uncertain fingers and trembling hands, you gingerly peel the cover off the mirror.

You study your reflection.

But it takes all of your willpower not to break down and cry because the person in the mirror is you from before you lost your memories, before you met Chrom. The person in the mirror stares back at you with your own weary eyes, your misery cloaked in your lost mother's love, your darkness festering inside your heart. (You refuse to call it Grima's; it never belonged to that lizard in the first place.) Your bones start to remember the bitter cold in which you lost your mother. Your shoulders remember the weight of the world you used to carry around because the constant brand called you a monster. Your hands tremble with the memory of blood and skin from trying to scratch it off. You remember it. You remember it all.

"Ignorant. Naive. _Weak._" Your reflection hissed.

You're crumbling inside. You remember that you were so unprepared, so callow in the face of the world outside your small home. No idea who you were, no idea how to fight, no idea how to kill. When those bandits attacked Southtown and you joined in the battle, you saw things that plagued you in your dreams for years. Death, despair, destruction. Orphaned children crying for their dead parents. Broken families mourning their dead, littered in the streets. Sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, _gone_. And you couldn't even process how to hold a sword let alone protect the unarmed.

But you block out the words with hands over your ears.

You've learned. You've experienced hardship and struggle and love and camaraderie. You've fought, hard and true, and you lived just as much. You grew.

"But you've felt it too, right?"

Your heart stops.

"You wanted to kill them all for killing Mother, turning you into a puppet, using you for their own goals. They took everything from you. Isn't that right?"

You uncover your ears and look.

Your reflection stares back at you, angry and bitter and hurt.

The Grimleal might've taken a lot of things from you… but not everything. They took away your Mother's life, but they never took her legacy. They took away your freedom, but you took it back. They tried to take your fate into their hands, but you made it yours long before they found you.

"… I took more things from them than they did from me," you say with a fake smug smirk. "I even killed my own father."

Your reflection suddenly morphs into a different you. This time you stare at an unholy hybrid of dragon and human. Instead of two eyes, you have six. Instead of skin, you have scales. Instead of fingers and teeth, you have claws and fangs. Instead of a living body, you've turned into a lifeless husk.

"_Is that so?_" A discordant, raspy voice overlapped with your own―Grima's, you realize―replies with a hint of amusement. "You took more than your father's life. You took others' as well. You took soldiers from their families. Brothers- and sisters-in-arms. Siblings from each other.

"_You took Emmeryn from Chrom and Lissa._"

An intense wave of nausea overcomes you and your knees feel weak. War, you realized soon after that first battle, never ended without casualties and gods were there many. You took down tyrants and conquerors, but none of those held a candle to how many soldiers you killed. How many families did you break with your blade? You couldn't even begin to fathom the number of lives you took. You can't even remember their faces―perhaps that's best for your sanity. And Emmeryn. If only you'd been stronger, smarter to save her. If only you'd made a different move. If only you'd done _something different_, she would be alive. Then her death wouldn't still haunt you, even in your death.

"Why… you're the reason why Lucina had to suffer so much."

That makes you stiffen and pause. You had the choice of being a god. You had the capability to turn into the monster in the mirror.

Gods know how many bodies you left behind in the wake of victory. Would that make you a monster?

Perhaps. Even without godhood you had power to destroy, decimate. You had a choice to walk away from this war, but you joined in with Chrom and the Shepherds. For what? Justice? Peace? You bitterly laugh at the notion that you killed people for _peace_. What a mighty cause to delude yourself of justifying all those deaths. A monster indeed. You're plenty a monster without Grima stepping in, but then you remember that you were offered godhood. Well. That tends to, ah, complicate things. If you were a god, you would…

But when you look at your reflection, you see yourself, terrified and alone, swayed by a temptation of perhaps a cure-all, an escape, something to make you and everyone around you happy and safe. Except, you had made a deal with the devil itself and you paid the price for it. A gruesome price. Six eyes stare back at you, a reminder of what you'd become had you chosen godhood. You shudder.

The one thing that kept you from turning into this monster is that you remembered your adopted family of soldiers. Every single one of them―they all had screamed at you to get your shit together and fight back when Grima held you hostage. You were helplessly drowning under the dragon's influence and, somehow, your bonds with the Shepherds pulled you out, saved you.

Those people―whom you love and cherish and, in turn, love and cherish you just as much―are the reason why you made the choice to kill Grima with your hands, so that they wouldn't have to live to see a painful, dismal future somewhere down the line. After all, you never really trusted the gods that much.

"I am," you say, "in a different timeline, that is. But in this one, I met and fought alongside Lucina to change the course of Fate. I learned that she is a very resilient woman, whose hope never dies even when she has gone through hell and back. And her efforts were not in vain. What she set out to do and fought for… she succeeded with the help of her friends.

"I can…forgive myself for Emmeryn. Sort of. What happened happened and there's no changing the past. I might never be entirely over her, but Chrom and Lissa will―I mean, they _have_ supported me. And I'm forever grateful for that."

Then, your reflection stills. Scales flake off to reveal human skin. Fangs and claws shrink down to normal-sized teeth and human fingers. By the time you see yourself reflected back at you, the mirror starts to fade away like you did. Your reflection grins before it disappears with the mirror.

In its place stands a very tall, very intimidating, very radiant, and very beautiful goddess in a white dress with long flowing jade hair and piercing blue eyes that stare down at you.

You gulp nervously. H-hopefully Naga doesn't smite you or anything, right?

To your surprise, the goddess's lips turn slightly upwards in a tiny but kind smile.

"Do you wish to see your loved ones?"

You pause.

"Is this heading where I think it's heading to?"

Naga laughs.

"Would you like a second chance at life?"

* * *

When you wake up, you're met with a pair of curious blue eyes studying you. A blonde girl in pigtails giggles at you, while a familiar blue-haired man offers a gloved hand.

"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground you know."

When you take his hand, you find that the back of your hand is clear, free from the brand.

Two pairs of arms encircle you in a warm embrace. Someone starts to sniffle―it's you. Oh dear, here comes the waterworks.

"Welcome back."

You smile with grateful tears in your eyes.


End file.
